MacRumors

Autodesk was at Macworld showing off a new product for the Mac called Autodesk Inventor Fusion. Autodesk Inventor Fusion is an existing 3D mechanical design software on Windows, but will soon become available for the Mac for the first time.

Autodesk made headlines back in 2010 when they returned to the Mac platform after a two decade hiatus. Due to the success they've seen with their existing Mac products, the company will be bringing Inventor Fusion to the Mac.

In the next few weeks, Autodesk will be releasing a free Technology Preview for the program which will allow Mac users to download an early version and provide feedback. The final release will come at some point later. Inventor Fusion is meant to be an easier to use tool focused on mechanical design which incorporates physical properties of objects.

Autodesk® Inventor® Fusion is 3D modeling software that showcases intuitive direct manipulation capabilities for unrivaled ease of use. By uniting direct modeling and parametric workflows, Inventor Fusion offers the best of both worlds. Designers can freely explore complex shapes and forms while maintaining the underlying parametric history. Inventor Fusion makes it easy to open and edit 3D models from almost any source and incorporate them into your design, enabling rapid design changes without limitations.

The software will include seamless cloud access for storage, collaboration and web viewing. Autodesk has a Facebook page set up for Inventor Fusion and will be announcing the Mac download in the near future.

A U.S. District Judge has ruled that an anti-trust case filed against a number of tech companies can continue, saying "they still have an antitrust claim" according to Bloomberg.

[Judge] Koh didn’t take issue with the allegations about the agreements between individual companies, Joseph Saveri, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in an interview after the hearing. Instead, Koh has questions about “how it ties together,” or claims of an over-arching conspiracy between all the companies, he said.

The case goes back more than 5 years, according to the lawsuit, which alleges that "no solicitation" agreements appeared in 2005 between Apple, Adobe, Google, Intel, Intuit, Lucasfilm, and Pixar. The agreements prevented companies from contacting employees at other companies who were party to the agreement, though employees were free to apply for jobs at other institutions.

The agreements were investigated in 2010 by the Justice Department. The claims were eventually settled, with the companies agreeing not to form no-solicitation agreements for five years.

The current lawsuit is a class-action civil suit brought by employees who said they were harmed by the anti-competitive actions of the defendant companies.

In the wake of yesterday's report regarding treatment of workers at the facilities of Apple's suppliers, Apple CEO Tim Cook has sent an email to company employees addressing the situation. As published by 9to5Mac, the email highlights Apple's efforts to oversee compliance with company standards for workers' rights and the transparency with which it has shared that information. From Cook's opening statement:

As a company and as individuals, we are defined by our values. Unfortunately some people are questioning Apple’s values today, and I’d like to address this with you directly. We care about every worker in our worldwide supply chain. Any accident is deeply troubling, and any issue with working conditions is cause for concern. Any suggestion that we don’t care is patently false and offensive to us. As you know better than anyone, accusations like these are contrary to our values. It’s not who we are.

Cook thanks those Apple employees who are focused on these issues and notes that the company will continue to increase its efforts.

We will continue to dig deeper, and we will undoubtedly find more issues. What we will not do — and never have done — is stand still or turn a blind eye to problems in our supply chain. On this you have my word.

The New York Times has also highlighted responses from a number of Chinese readers, many of whom note that the issue is certainly not exclusive to Apple and should also be being addressed by government regulations designed to protect workers. Many readers note that China's cheap labor force has enabled the country's rapid economic expansion over the last several decades and the culture is so ingrained across all industries that it will be difficult to change.

Research firm Strategy Analytics today announced its estimates of the global smartphone market for the fourth quarter of 2011, finding that Apple narrowly squeezed by Samsung to retake the title of world's largest smartphone vendor as measured by unit shipments. According to Strategy Analytics' numbers, Apple's 37 million iPhones narrowly eclipsed Samsung's quarterly smartphone shipments of 36.5 million units.

Neil Mawston, Executive Director at Strategy Analytics, added, “While Apple took the top spot in smartphones on a quarterly basis, Samsung became the market leader in annual terms for the first time with 20 percent global share during 2011. With global smartphone shipments nearing half a billion units in 2011, Samsung is now well positioned alongside Apple in a two-horse race at the forefront of one of the world’s largest and most valuable consumer electronics markets.”

Strategy Analytics showed Apple first taking the title in the second quarter of 2011 as it passed Nokia and held off a surging Samsung to become the world's largest smartphone vendor. But Apple's reign at the top was short-lived as Samsung easily topped the list in the third quarter on continued growth paired with a pause in iPhone sales ahead of the iPhone 4S launch. With the iPhone 4S launch now fueling Apple's numbers, it was able to retake the lead from Samsung in the fourth quarter, although it was not able to top the charts for full-year 2011.

One caveat for numbers released by Strategy Analytics and other research firms comes from the fact that Samsung no longer reports mobile phone sales numbers, ending the practice in mid-2010 for competitive reasons. Consequently, observers can only estimate Samsung's sales numbers based on the company's financial performance and other evidence.

Macworld | iWorld carries the usual collection of iPhone cases and accessories, not all of which are insanely great. But here are a few interesting ones that were on the show floor as I made my way through the masses.

Opena Case and Intoxicase were both showing off iPhone cases with built in bottle openers. Intoxicase's even integrates with an app that counts the number of openings. Not sure the demand for such a thing, but here they are.

WaveCradle is simple aluminum stand that amplifies the audio coming from your iPhone. The stand simple curves the audio towards the listener and they claim an 8 decibel increase. Cradles cost from $19.85 to $28.50.

Nomad Brush sells capacitive tipped paint brushes for use on your iPad. The iPad can't sense pressure, so the use of these special brushes is primarily for feel. Artists may be more accustomed to using a brush than their finger. Brushes cost from $18 to $39.

iLidiPhoneCase claims to be the thinnest iPhone wallet case. It's priced at $39.95 and is shipping in a few weeks. The floor model felt a bit plastic-y, however.

We briefly mentioned WDC's press release that they would be showing their new MyBook Thunderbolt Duo at Macworld. Here are photos from the show floor of the unit. As expected, the new drive shares the same appearance as their previous two drive MyBook hardware.

This new model, however, incorporates two Thunderbolt ports that allows the units to be daisy chained with each other to create a single logical drive.

At the show, WDC was showing 4 devices daisy chained with Thunderbolt in a striped configuration. Each MyBook Thunderbolt Duo had two 3TB drives, giving a total capacity of 24TB that appeared on the desktop as one contiguous 24TB device.

The individual drives within each unit are user serviceable/replaceable and can be configured in either RAID 0 or RAID 1 configurations. The product will be available this quarter with pricing to be announced then.

Earlier this week, Apple reported its best quarterly earnings ever, taking in more than $46 billion over three months. 53% of that revenue was from the sale of 37 million iPhones, at an average selling price of nearly $660. This ASP is particularly impressive, considering this is the first quarter that Apple has sold a "free" iPhone in the U.S. -- the iPhone 3GS is available for free to new two-year contract signers on AT&T.

Apple's iPhone ASP has remained fairly consistent, hovering between $622 and $660 for most of the phone's lifespan. With Apple offering their cheapest iPhones yet this quarter, some analysts wondered if that would have a negative effect on the iPhone's ASP. It seems that demand for the 64GB iPhone 4S -- the most expensive iPhone yet at $849 -- has easily offset the cheaper iPhone 3GS and 4 models.

All Things D reports estimates from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners that claim 89% of iPhone purchases in the U.S. were for the iPhone 4S, with only 4% of buyers choosing the iPhone 3GS. More relevant for the discussion above, CIRP estimates that higher-end 4S models sold particularly well, with 21% of 4S purchasers opting for the 64GB model and 34% picking up the 32GB.

One of Tim Cook's first acts when he became CEO of Apple was to institute a charitable matching program for employees. Under the program, Apple would match employees' personal contributions to 501(c)(3) charitable organizations up to $10,000 per year. However, the program initially only applied to US-based full-time employees.

Now, it seems Apple has expanded the program to include part-time US employees as well, and covering international workers soon, according to a tweet from the Apple Retail Workers Union twitter account.

As of November 2011, some two months after the program went into effect, Apple had matched $1.3 million in employee contributions, with the $2.6 million dollars donated in total.

Macworld | iWorld 2012 kicked off this morning in San Francisco with the opening of the expo show floor. For years, Macworld was the major trade show for Apple to announce their new products. The venue was the launching ground for the first iPhone launch back in 2007.

Since Apple's departure, the show has continued with a focus on 3rd party companies. This year, the show has been rebranded as Macworld | iWorld reflecting the increased importance of iOS in the Apple ecosystem.

Clear

Realmac Software and Impending used Macworld | iWorld to announce their new to do app for the iPhone. Impending is a new studio formed by Phill Ryu and David Lanham. Ryu is best known for his work on MacHeist, which MacRumors has partnered with in the past.

The app is called Clear and is a minimalist take on the to do / list manager app, focusing on simple gestures to manage all elements of the list:

The app has not yet launched but will be coming in the next couple of weeks. It will be a free download for the basic app with in-app purchases for color themes and the ability to have multiple lists.

WDC MyBook Thunderbolt Duo

At least one new Thunderbolt product has been announced. Western Digital announced that they would be showing off their MyBook Thunderbolt Duo drive system at Macworld. The new drives will presumably be similar to their existing MyBook product line. Pricing and availability has not yet been announced.

We'll have more from Macworld | iWorld over the next few days.

The New York Times today published a lengthy report discussing working conditions at the facilities of Apple's suppliers in China, part of a growing focus on how Apple's popular products are made. While the company is making strides in holding its suppliers accountable to company standards, the report cites former Apple executives who note that the company continues to struggle balancing its desire for better working conditions and workers' rights with its business priorities.

Some former Apple executives say there is an unresolved tension within the company: executives want to improve conditions within factories, but that dedication falters when it conflicts with crucial supplier relationships or the fast delivery of new products. [...]

“We’ve known about labor abuses in some factories for four years, and they’re still going on,” said one former Apple executive who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of confidentiality agreements. “Why? Because the system works for us. Suppliers would change everything tomorrow if Apple told them they didn’t have another choice.”

Apple is far from the only company experiencing such tensions, but has been receiving the most publicity due to the popularity of its products and its booming financial results.

Apple details its efforts on monitoring supplier responsibility in an annual report, outlining hundreds of audits it conducts to check for compliance and the steps it has taken to remedy issues discovered as part of the process. But sources note that while Apple routinely threatens companies with a loss of business if issues are not addressed, the company in practice has tolerate continued issues because it frequently has few alternatives in its supply chain.

“If you see the same pattern of problems, year after year, that means the company’s ignoring the issue rather than solving it,” said one former Apple executive with firsthand knowledge of the supplier responsibility group. “Noncompliance is tolerated, as long as the suppliers promise to try harder next time. If we meant business, core violations would disappear.”

The highest-profile issues at Apple suppliers have involved a number of suicides at Foxconn's facilities and separate explosions at Foxconn and Pegatron facilities last year that together resulted in four deaths and 77 injuries.

Apple has over 150 suppliers contributing to its products, many of them located in China and other Asian countries where workers are plentiful and wages low in comparison to other regions of the world. Last week, The New York Times detailed how the U.S. has been unable to compete with China for production of the iPhone and other devices as factories in Asia have proven to be considerably more flexible in their ability to scale production up and down and have become the location for nearly the entire supply chain.

But while the economics and logistics of manufacturing in China bring Apple speed, scale, and costs that are unmatchable in the United States, the company finds itself struggling to deal with the human factor that has become increasingly visible alongside Apple's rise to prominence.

Research firm Strategy Analytics today announced the results of its calculations of worldwide tablet shipments during the fourth quarter of 2011, revealing that Apple continues to hold a majority of the market as Android improves its standing on the strength of Amazon's Kindle Fire.

Peter King, Director at Strategy Analytics, said, “Global tablet shipments reached an all-time high of 26.8 million units in Q4 2011, surging 150 percent from 10.7 million in Q4 2010. Demand for tablets among consumer, business and education users remains strong. Apple shipped a robust 15.4 million iPads worldwide and maintained its strong market leadership with 58 percent share during the fourth quarter of 2011. Apple shrugged off the much-hyped threat from entry-level Android models this quarter.”

Despite strong growth in shipment share for Android, Apple's share is down less than four percentage points since the firm's estimates for the second quarter of last year. Android's other gains appear to have come at the expense of Microsoft and Research in Motion, which registered at 4.6% and 3.3% respectively during the second quarter.

The relevance of Strategy Analytics' numbers have been questioned in the past due to its counting of shipments rather than end sales to customers. With many early Android tablets seeing little interest from consumers, the firm's reports were seen as overstating Android's impact by counting Android tablets still sitting on store shelves while Apple was selling nearly every iPad it could make. It is unclear whether that dynamic has changed with the introduction of the Kindle Fire, which has reportedly seen fairly strong adoption and which may have lower channel inventory needs due to Amazon's heavy emphasis on distribution through its own website.

AT&T today announced its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2011, revealing that the carrier saw record-smashing sales of 9.4 million smartphones, nearly double the previous quarter's sales and 50% higher than the company's previous record. The iPhone was clearly the primary driver of smartphone sales for AT&T, as the carrier reported 7.6 million iPhone activations during that quarter, with the "majority" of those activations being iPhone 4S devices.

In the fourth quarter, the company set a new record with 9.4 million smartphones sold, nearly double the number sold in the third quarter and 50 percent more than the previous quarterly record. Fourth-quarter smartphone sales represented more than 80 percent of postpaid device sales. Both iPhone and Android device sales set records. During the quarter, more than 7.6 million iPhones were activated, the majority of which were iPhone 4S, which went on sale Oct. 14, and more than twice as many Android smartphones were sold versus the fourth quarter a year ago. iPhone sales were helped by a superior customer experience, with AT&T delivering download speeds up to three-times faster than on other U.S. carriers' networks.

The iPhone and total smartphone numbers can not be directly compared, however, as the "activations" number AT&T reports for iPhones includes used devices activated on new contracts such as when a user's old device is sold or given away upon upgrading.

AT&T also touts its lead over Verizon in iPhone activations, noting that it has continued to easily outpace Verizon every quarter since AT&T lost exclusivity on the iPhone in early 2011.

Finally, AT&T notes that it has continued to improve its voice and data network, with more than 80% of data traffic now coming over the carrier's enhanced backhaul that allows for "4G" speeds on devices supporting at least HSPA+, such as the iPhone 4S. The carrier also reports that "call retainability", an inverse measure of dropped call rates, has continued to increase and was over 99% throughout the quarter for 3G connections on a nationwide basis.

According to 9to5Mac, during today's town hall meeting, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced to employees that they would get $500 off Macs and $250 iPads.

The new discount program starts in June 2012, and can only be used once every 3 years. Employees also need to have been working at Apple for at least 90 days. The discount is reportedly for both corporate and retail employees. The discount is said to exclude the Mac mini.

Apple employees presently are allowed a one-a-year 25% discount on Apple systems. One report even claims that this discount will remain in place alongside the new discounts.

In 2007, shortly after the original iPhone's launch, Apple had announced a similar perk for employees. At that time, Steve Jobs announced that all full time and part time Apple employees would receive an 8GB iPhone.